


Let me die first or let me die twice

by BookofLife



Category: Arrow - Fandom
Genre: F/M, I Don't Even Know, I hope it's sad and beautiful and wonderful, I wrote it on an ice cream high as I listened to sad songs, Promise, Time Travel Fix-It, and maybe I'm venting, i wrote this in one sitting, still it ends well, what's wrong with me?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 10:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18619012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofLife/pseuds/BookofLife
Summary: After serving the Monitor for twenty years, Oliver came home to tragedy.So he fixes it.





	Let me die first or let me die twice

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from!  
> I wrote this in one sitting yesterday so if it doesn't feel up to my usual standards I do apologise.  
> Thank you Cathy for the Epic Verse for the title - THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU DO REALISE?  
> This is such an indulgent oneshot

**Let me die first or let me die twice (Atticus)**

It felt like a long time before he heard anything. Then it was the pull of a bow, the _whisper_ of the notch of an arrow that brought clarity to him.

And nostalgia.

_I… made it._

He was there. Something had gone right. For the first time, he’d made the right choice. The universe had listened to him. Ironically, he had Barry to thank.

And Barry to blame-

_No._

No, he only had himself.

_I failed first._

“Who _are_ you?”

It was stunning: for a moment it felt like he’d fallen through the floor. Fallen back in time through the years, and he literally had; but it was nothing compared to hearing that blast from the past, that aggression.

That voice.

 _I thought I’d forgotten_.

The way he used to be. The simple way he’d existed that part of him missed, even now because; that version himself… He didn’t dream. Find the thing, stop the thing, sleep. Rinse, repeat. He’d thought he’d forgotten the kind of nothingness - and the darkness - that used to exist inside him too. _She_ did that, had let him forget what that had felt like with all the _good_ in between and between them; she’d shown him it was better to light a candle in the black than it was to measure the depth of the darkness surrounding it and then to _breathe_ , and smile and laugh and realise he had a reason to. She taught him how to live.

She could do that.

She had that power.

 _Had_ -

She’d been-

 _My girl_ -

He couldn’t concentrate.

“I asked you a question.”

Like, _I’m asking politely_. It surprised him enough to make him smile: a strange smile because he was surprised that he even _could_ smile a smile he’d rarely felt before. _Irony_. An ironic smile.

“Don’t. Move.”

Had he?

Had his leg twitched, had he tried to shuffle from the growing discomfort? Or could he see his smile, was it as disturbing to him as it was to- _to me_. Both removed from and utterly helpless to the situation.

Don’t move. _Is that how I used to sound?_ Those two words. Precise. Imperative. A low roll of menace and pure visceral intent to do harm, because there was nothing _good_ to calm it. Not yet. _Nearly there_ , but not yet. And the tone, the vehemence, the difference- _look at what you changed in me_ , what she’d brought out. _I was lost. You found me._

 _Come find me again._ Before it’s all over, before the black sweeps in; taking him away to some unknown _after,_ without her. _Don’t forget that I’m here_.

Even though he’d left her behind so long ago.

Where was she? She promised she’d wait; he didn’t deserve it, but she’d promised, and Felicity was like him: they kept their promises. _Where can I find you?_ Not where he’d left, not in the future. _Don’t go where I can’t follow, don’t leave me where you aren’t_ , because who could say he’d end up where she is? She was everything he wasn’t; she deserved the best and brightest the universe had to offer.

But he couldn’t share her with the universe: he’d already shared himself a hundred times over. It shouldn’t want her too. Strip him to his bones, how much more could it take from him that he hadn’t already given? It owed him- _the Monitor owes me this_.

It didn’t owe him a _thing_.

 _No, please give me something_. Or let him die. Years had gone by, full of noise and everything he didn’t care to hear; save her voice. To go the rest without hearing it… unthinkable. _I can’t- I-_

Stop.

He couldn't go there, not yet. There was something he needed to do before he broke under the weight of logic. Charlie Chaplin once wrote, _life is a tragedy when seen in close up, but a comedy in long shot_. He’d left; choosing the hard path over the easy, because it was right. He’d worked, slaved, to bring peace and he had, only to return home and find a war.

Only to realise that just because he thought he’d earned his own measure of peace with the woman he’d spent his every waking thought thinking about, didn’t mean he had a right to it.

Almost thirty years of fighting for the good of mankind.

He came home to find his dead wife.

If you look at it from a distance-

_It’s kind of funny._

Fight, fight, fight, sacrifice, sweat, shed tears, spill blood; rewards? None. Just get up and fight again, just watch as others find their peace. _I had mine_. She was his; in this lifetime of war he’d chosen over making love to his wife, she’d given herself to him and he’d- it isn’t right. He’d been planning on giving it to her back: of spending the next three decades paying it _back_ to her.

It wasn’t making sense to him, that he couldn’t now. That was his function. His purpose. He’d done the _right_ thing for years; now Oliver Queen was meant to serve his wife and he’d been so ready for it. Anticipating the only goal and purpose he’d ever had in his life promised nothing save a sea of tranquillity and love and he’d been ready. _I can’t wait. Couldn’t wait_ \- he’d planned it to the letter, what he’d do, how he’d be, the many ways he’d try to make up for the lost years; knowing he couldn’t but… there were people in the world who didn’t get to have time with the ones they loved.

He just thought he’d earned that time in spades.

Clearly, the universe was its own monster.

Part of him was stunned that he’d been allowed even this: to trespass into the past, as a foreign variable that could twist-turn everything - he’d learned the rules. This was punishable by death. By eradication. Something, someone – maybe even the Monitor – could reach for him now to yank him out of all existence. _Go for it_. He didn’t care about himself anymore. But he had to try, to _change_ fate. Hers.

_And mine._

She deserved it to be changed.

 _Change it all_ : in hindsight, there was nothing in his memories he wouldn’t - couldn’t - let go of. Tommy, his parents, Laurel, Thea: they could take them all away from him. There was nothing he’d say no to changing. Nothing he’d choose over _this_. Not. This. Time.

Let it be taken.

 _Just give her back to me._ Even if it was a _different_ him. Even if it meant… being a different kind of selfish. A different Oliver. The kind that _didn’t_ put the good of the many before the few.

For him to think like that… it had been a _very_ long time, hadn’t it? Since _then_. A time that was as familiar as it was alien.

Ad how much he’d wasted back then. Moments and memories that he’d walked blindly though like a giant dinosaur. Feelings he’d locked down, that he’d pushed aside. Wasted.

_I’m so sorry._

And all that aggression in him, that anger, the hatred- _you-_

_I._

_Me._

_I was so wrong about… about so much_. About everything. _Idiot. You had it all right here and you didn’t have a clue._ Not of how good it could be, of how his self-hate was meaningless in the long run; his doubts and insecurities even more so. Safe with her. That’s what he’d been. Loved and safe… and wanted. She’d given him nourishment for life, and he’d given her a broken heart. A promise he’d fulfilled, only too late. Love she’d never feel from him again-

_No._

It couldn’t be true, that she wasn’t there anymore. It wasn’t possible.

It hurt. It hurt the way humans shouldn’t ever have to feel. The kind where you die inside, and no one notices.

And now-

 _Please just come back._ Somehow. She could find a way: she was magic. Though he knew it was impossible. _See, I’m not smiling anymore_. How could he: she wasn’t there. His younger self could take it easy: smiling wantonly like that, how dare he? _You don’t know what that feels like just yet, do you?_ To smile, just because he was happy. _She’s right there for you_.

But he couldn’t find his wife anywhere. _I can’t find you_. Not even here, in the past. It wouldn’t be her.

But that wasn’t why he’d come _back_. It wasn’t to be _reminded_. It was to cheat his own path. To break chains. To shatter fate. To take something for himself for a change and to do that, he had to reach out to who he’d been. He had to go that far back, he had to start where it had begun - where he’d begun to change and feel and _fear_ \- with his most ignorant self.

They could have had so much more if he’d just taken a breath, if he’d let in before he had.

It seeped in like a poison and he wished, sorely, that _he_ could be the one to change everything. That he could switch places with his 28-year-old self and get it right. Be bold and impossible. To choose differently. He hadn’t grasped onto it with both hands at a time when he should have _. You let it go._ He still didn’t deserve her.

But he couldn’t live without her. _Choiceless_ , happily so.

Also disregarding how he made no sense without her either, why would he even _want_ to life without her in it? She was irreplaceable.

It hit him all over again, how lucky he’d been. It hit the way a heat wave would; a crashing tidal wave of _too_ much- the missed years, of the _ache_. It was indescribable, insufferable, he’d missed her; that utterly inescapable and downright unbearable sensation of not being whole. Of being without her, of knowing he’d _never_ know how she’d changed; the little differences he’d yearned to map out over her body and back his own, the new likes and dislikes she’d accumulated, the stories they’d exchange, naked and in front of a roaring fire because he hadn’t truly been warm - hadn’t cared to be warm anyway - since he left her, of how he’d wanted to, once more, share himself with her.

Of all the love the world had to offer, because that’s what she’d given him. That hadn’t been destroyed because even death couldn’t take their love away: they were more than that, but… there was nothing fare here. To feel it the rest of his life but be unable to feel _her_. See her, hear her, touch her, tease responses out of her. Be with her. It would be an existence past all loneliness.

And it took him down now; into the dark, cutting off that voice-

“If you don’t answer, I will shoot-”

_Shut up…_

He knew what was happening now. His was dying, a second time.

The first time he’d died was with her, when he’d returned home one- _one_ hour too late.

One hour.

He’d missed all of that, all of her, by one hour.

Pretty fucking funny.

 _What was the point?_ It made him never want to move again. _What was the point in leaving? In saving Barry and Kara when a force of goodness so much greater than theirs, was taken in their stead?_ He’d asked himself that question over and over and over in the last 48 hours, so he knew the answer: there wasn’t one. There was no point. Nothing in this fir him: a universe had needed balance. It didn’t care about the little things like, the sanity of Oliver Queen.

The death, the perfection, of god’s most beautiful creature.

 _I don’t want to do this_. He’d said those words. He didn’t want to live, breath, speak. He’d told them all to go away.

They’d had different ideas for him. Healthier ones. Clean ones. _Worthless_ _ones_.

It didn’t matter: he hadn’t been there to protect her one last time. He hadn’t been there for the last _twenty_ years.

There was no excuse on the planet to save him from that.

The idea of living on _for_ her - _fuck off Dinah_ \- was so disgusting to him. _It should be the other way around_. If one of them were to live on, it should be _her_. She’d raised his daughter. Fought a city filled with the helpless and ungrateful and preposterous. Created a company.

Without a single friend in sight, not just her husband.

Dinah who lived within her own little circle of hubris, who could never love the way he’d been so lucky to love because she didn’t have it in her to reach inside someone the way Felicity had him. Dinah who’d taken surface answers and hadn’t strived to look deeper. Who’d decided people were a certain way, simply because she believed so much in herself. _She loves herself enough for two people_. Rene was dead, shot in the back of the head: the fruits of his labour for turning against everything he’d fought for once. A befitting end for siding with Emiko in the first place, because he’d missed being in love so much - and he’d tried to throw that at him once, that Oliver and Felicity had made him want more and really they should take responsibility for that too, right? - he’d been willing to travel down a dark road paved with good intentions; fooled into thinking his half-sister could return his affections. She hadn’t.

John, who’d been a lucky bastard: who’d been able to share a bed with his wife for two decades and raise his family, even if it was only to eventually see one son turn on him as he brought home another.

They didn’t understand. It didn’t matter if they could have with time, he wasn’t patient enough to try to describe the indescribable: _we were always beyond their comprehension, love_. How else could they all explain how they’d unilaterally turned on him, _us_.

Even when they were alone, apart; they’d been together. None of the others knew what that felt like. To be so connected that he’d felt her love for him in his travels, giving him strength. So linked that, he’d sensed her leave before he’d gotten there.

He’d felt her die.

It had started as a cold pit in place of a stomach. Something telling him it was all over, _everything_ ; hopeless. And then the wrenching: something tearing free from inside him, making him cry out, making him _see_ and then he couldn’t breathe.

Or believe.

And even now, after everything, at the end of all things; her touch was so strong to him, so _soft_ against his cheek that he retched with a broken body that could no longer contain him as his soul tried to grasp onto what was left of her.

And he revelled in it.

How _incredible_ his life had been because of her.

Those moments he’d been a part of, forever framed in time. Moments that had given him the strength just to _last._

How fucking stupid he’d been to put it _second_.

Second- he’d put it **_second_**.

For nothing.

“I said,” a foot to his back pushed him into a roll and he instinctively made sure his face wasn’t visible, though it wouldn’t last, _I’m making him nervous_ , and again; it was so fucking funny but in a miserable kind of way, _I’m making myself nervous._ “Don’t move.”

Prepared. Smart. Cold.

Don’t move.

 _No problem_.

Without wanting to - as if his body just didn’t care anymore and why should it - this _laugh_ , this gruff, wrecked, gasping thing left him and _oh_ , it hurt. It hurt so much - a ripple of agony when his chest heaved upwards - he had to close his eyes when a blinding pain turned his vision white-

_‘Oliver’_

His heart stopped. His lungs froze. His ears cancelled sound.

…Then they all started up again.

 _No- no, don’t. Take it back. I don’t need it_. Didn’t need to breathe, didn’t need his heartbeat. She was after all that: in the place you go when all of that stops-

 _Don’t go_. _Come back, please don’t go_. Was he just hearing things? Was he just that ready to die? But… he could feel her. He could feel her presence. As if she’d simply stepped through a door that had been closed to him until now- _it doesn’t matter_. He needed her the way humans need breath-

_‘Hey’_

Everything paused again… then continued.

But the madness in him, the pain; it _lessened_.

_Oh. I get it now._

She’d come for him.

Love. That was the answer to living. It always had been, so It made sense to him that it would be the answer in death too.

He was dying.

Eyes closed, on the floor; he realised a sigh of pure contentment.

Relief: it took away the pain. She was here, she’d come for him. He’d screamed for her and she’d heard him, and he knew her; she’d never let him suffer if she could help it. He was going _home_. He wouldn’t have to live one more agonising second without her. _Take me_. It was time. He knew because she’d never pull him from life if he had life left in him, no matter how much he wanted her to.

_You… forgive me?_

For leaving. For leaving her so alone for so long. He’d made the choice and he hadn’t stopped since he’d left. It would have been easier by a thimble for him to cope than her. _You’ve always been stronger than me_. Case in point: she’d stayed around, waiting for him. Still waiting like she promised, and she always kept her promises.

Even after he’d failed her so utterly, she was right there: waiting in the light, _it’s so warm_. And she was letting him feel it, the _after_.

She’d come for him.

She wasn’t going away until he took her hand. She wouldn’t leave him alone here, in this unforgiving world.

She’d saved him a place in the warmth, when he’d been sure he wouldn’t be allowed entry.

He should have known: no one says no to his wife.

 _I missed you so much, baby_. He wanted to go now. _I missed you even when I wasn’t aware_. In the black. _I missed you when I was sleeping, when I was eating_. In other places than this. _I missed you and I’m so sorry Felicity, I never should have gone._

Twenty years.

She was gone before he could make good on his promise to return. _I failed_.

She. Waited. For. Him.

And he was deliciously close, _so_ close, he could taste the forever sleep of his body - the enchanting peace and happy _after_ that she offered him - it was too enticing. _We’re souls: we wear our bodies; they don’t wear us_. What was there to keep him alive?

“Turn around.”

He was still smiling, even as he lay there; curled up on the ground, because it was funny. This whole thing was hilarious, if you looked at it a certain way; but this time, his fear was funny. What did he have to fear? He should have known better. She’d never let him go on alone. _I love you_.

You could see it that way, if you’re the one dying-

“I’m giving you one warning…”

There was no way he would obey any command from his younger, idiot self - his need to control - in the man he knew stood above him. A _boy_ , in many ways. And maybe it was perverse - to push that thin facade - but the sheer irony made him want to turn over, made him move anyway. Stretching out the legs he’d tucked in when been deposited in this time, this space.

Maybe knowing he was _going_ took away the pain because he felt none somehow and-

_‘It’s okay. It’s okay, Oliver’_

She was taking it away, the pain. The ache. The soreness, just like she always did. He’d dreamed of their reunion a thousand times over the last two decades. He hadn’t imagined they’d both be dead when they did.

_I’ll take it._

He just needed a word with his past self, first.

_‘Take your time; I’m not going anywhere’_

Felicity.

“Fine.” He heard the inhale before his younger self pulled back on the bowstring; _I lost focus for a too long_. “If that’s the way you want to play it-”

“Whoa! Oliver- what’s going on?”

This time, he had to suck in breath - breathe in life - like a man in a desert would water through a straw. _Oh_. That was different.

“Felicity, stay over there!”

“But you-”

It was her. She was here too. _I miscalculated_. But what a sound to hear. The best sound. Lighter. _Softer_. Younger. Like bubbles, sweet caresses and long kisses. And not quite the lower, throatier tone he’d grown to need. But still perfect.

“Felicity, I said stay _back_.”

Her voice always had been.

“Oh, he looks bad. Who is he?”

“He’s an intruder.”

“No kidding. But he’d bleeding.”

“He’s. An. Intruder.”

“Who. Might. Need. Our. _Help_.”

And she sounded so done with him just then - so done with a man twice her size and a hundred times more physically dangerous, telling him to tone it down like he was a marshmallow heart inside of killing machine - that humour choke in his throat.

Except he was disorientated, about to be shot and in the wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong _verse_.

So, of course, it came out as a cough instead of a laugh, which was just as well.

“Oliver…”

A gentle nudge. A _come on_ , _have a heart_.

She hadn’t known then, that she was his. That he would do a great many things if only she’d asked, and she never had.

His younger self sighed. “Get some water. And a blanket. I’ll take a look at him.”

“I’ll lock the doors!” The voice was already further away than before. “Be careful, he’s bleeding.”

That he was. The blanket might be for the sweat dripping off him. _Fever_. A side effect from crossing through time and space.

_Barry._

He gritted his teeth.

He’d also been shot. Stabbed at. Wounded.

He’d done what he’d set out to do, he’d paid his promise to the monitor in full. He’d given the entity, time. In return Barry and Kara wouldn’t disappear from reality and he’d be able to go home to his wife. Fifty years young. It would never be enough, but imagine thinking it was too short?

Now there was… nothing. No time. No Felicity.

_‘Hey, I’m right here’_

It was enough even as it never would be. To be denied those years on top of the years of sacrifice…

_It isn’t fair._

_‘Life rarely is’_

Rough hands pulled him over before he could smile at her and find her with his hands, to touch what she was once more, and he almost screamed at his past self. He wanted to be left alone with her, he wanted-

“You try anything, and I’ll snap your neck before she can come back.” Of course. Threats. He really _had_ been a blunt instrument. “I’m taking off your… hood.” The black matted thing his green suit had become after twenty years of abuse. “Your bleeding; how badly are you…”

Bold and vivid, _youthful_ blue met the tired and weary kind of blue that had stonewashed with memories and age.

Hands immediately retracting, stunned into complete silence, his past self just stared at him; wide eyed, pulse pounding in his neck, galvanic skin response sky high.

…He had to give it to him for not standing up. For not immediately pulling clear and away from the version of himself before him that screamed that the next few decades of his life would not be kind, just in case he was getting any ideas about living peacefully. He’d been all about the control. He still was. But after so long, he didn’t have to fight anymore and-

_I’m so tired._

It was already a drain, seeing the young man before him. Remembering. Knowing the path before him. It hurt so much. It hurt as much as it was freeing.

_I’ve loved enough for a lifetime, but it still isn’t enough._

“I…” he tried to rasp, grimly acknowledging that minute flinch in the young Oliver, _yes; that’s what you sound like_. Sad. In pain. Alone. Dying. _What you’d always pictured for yourself._ “I don’t have a lot of time.” He had all the time in the world and that was the problem: life wasn’t meant to be lived alone and the journey? It was all about who was beside you along the way. Or in Oliver’s case, waiting for you at the end. He didn’t want her waiting a second longer than she had to. “You need to listen to me-”

“Who are you?”

Firm. A question. Redundant. Hopeful and hopeless. His eyes told him so. “You know… _exactly_ who I am.”

Really, he _was_ feeling the weakest he’d ever felt. It was difficult to speak now, knowing that she was there. Dying wasn’t supposed to feel good but having the life leave his body was the sweetest release he could discover at the end and it was a fight to say what he needed to say. Pain, exhaustion, suffering: they became meaningless; death freed you from them.

The wounds he’d suffered weren’t the worst he’d ever had.

His body had simply given up. _So, this is what it means to die of a broken heart_.

He was just such a lucky bastard that he’d fallen so deeply in love with the only woman in the universe willing and capable of breaking the walls of reality in order to come back for him.

“I need you to do something for me.” Licking his lips, he knew his younger self wouldn’t interrupt because he’d seen enough in his life already to know that _this_ was real. “It’s… very important.” To know the injured, older version of himself was legit and didn’t have time to deviate. “It’s the most important thing you’ll ever do.”

Serious, fearful, curious: his past self stared into eyes so like his own and Oliver had a feeling he was holding his breath.

And he spoke slowly, unevenly. _I’m crying; why am I crying?_ “Choose her.” It was more breath than words and he had to fight to focus. “Even if it’s just once, it doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter.”

“What are you talking about?”

God, he sounded so achingly young and strong and naïve.

“I’m asking you… I’m begging _you_.” Swallowing down the dryness, everything he was feeling coated his voice. “There’ll be a moment.” His eyes, darkening with death, cored into his younger self’s. “You’ll make choices that hurt her, that doesn’t put her first and she deserves that, she…”

 _She deserved everything and more and she didn’t get it. Don’t you understand the tragedy in that? That… Our girl: she died without me. She died waiting for me. She wasn’t given the world. She wasn’t put first because I_ couldn’t _put her first and I couldn’t do that because no one else would step up and take the mantle of responsibility. I was the dark and she was the light and sometimes there’s a price to pay for being dark. One I_ had _to pay. But it felt like her punishment, Oliver; not mine. It will never be right, and it felt like-_

_Listen to me-_

“Hey!”

Snapping out of it - _why am I grabbing him?_ \- younger hands than his latched onto his wrist as the other Oliver leaned away from him. “What- _who_ are you talking about?”

It took him a few seconds to realise he’d said some of that out loud. _Did I freak you out?_ “You _will_ \- You’ll do this a lot. You’ll choose.”

“I- Okay.” Like, _that’s a nice lunatic and_ -

Hand clawing down and around the other man’s arm, he was still strong enough to cause him pain. “Listen!” Had he ever sounded so desperate? This was necessary. “You don’t get it, you don’t-”

Pain from his side rippled through him as he tried to yank the other Oliver closer and he hissed, retracting. _Dammit_.

It was too easy to sink.

Too… temptingly warm.

_‘Are you done, sleepy head?’_

_Almost._

Thank God.

But when he opened his eyes again, _she_ was standing right there-

“Felicity,” the other Oliver’s hand was already ready, already in front of her and touching her stomach to keep her back, “stay there.”

“What’s going on?” And her voice-

Beautiful and bright, it wobbled. A blast from the past in two-inch heels, and- _oh_ it ached.

It ached so good.

He barely took in her gasp, or the fact that her hands were covering her mouth as she blinked at sight of him. At the older, bloodied and done for version of the man she knew she was already head over heels in love with. _God, I was a lucky guy._ And an idiot. But lucky. For her to give him all that she was…

Her younger self sent a fast look at _his_ younger self. His younger self met her eyes at just the right moment. Then they proceeded to have a silent, three second conversation that made him want to start laughing at himself:

_He looks just like you._

_I know._

_Just like you Oliver._

_I know._

_But older._

_Yeah._

_And he’s bleeding._

_I don’t need to be told that._

_I don’t think your older self is here to hurt you._

_How do you know that?_

_Time travel. Theory relativity. Redundancy. Anything he does to you affects him. Killing you kills him._

_Oh._

They’d been _this_ bad? _Jesus_. So in sync and ludicrously perfect for each other, but denying it. _I’m at fault there_.

And maybe he was already fading, because one moment he was watching their display and the next…

She was sitting right in front of his face.

 _Gosh_. What a sight.

He found his lips moving, something only she’d ever been able to make him do: talk without meaning to. “Look at you.”

Her hands had been reaching for him and they stuttered to a halt, which was fine. He didn’t need any help.

But her eyes met his and it was the most perfect moment he’d been part of in twenty years. Like being able to breathe and… that was when he realised. _This_ was his gift. This was why he hadn’t been stopped, why Barry had suffered an unusual moment of clarity; leading to a self-sacrifice, taking Oliver back to change the future and not in his favour.

All to see her.

And shatter the fate attached to her that she didn’t deserve.

Pretty, _pretty_ eyes looked into his and where had all their time gone? How had they gotten from here to there so quickly? Almost thirty years and it came and went so fast.

Take him back to the days that were simple. That had him patrolling the streets with her in his ear, the days where they worked together and watched each other; thinking the other didn’t see. Take him back and change it to include kisses and acceptance and belief in the future.

Or have the other Oliver get a clue.

Still, he took in every single facet of her face because he could; her skin, her size, _her_ \- and watched her slowly twist back to look at _her_ Oliver - and the rightfulness of those words made everything inside him sing - who was kneeling just behind her. Who looked helpless and confused and protective. A defensive stance that was so beyond unnecessary. But he noticed that he wasn’t ‘battle ready’. Deep down, his younger self knew that he’d never physically hurt her.

Because he was in love with her. Because she was Felicity. Because, young or old, he simply couldn’t.

She wasn’t Helena or Sara or Laurel or Dinah who he’d had no trouble sparring with for fear of hurting them.

She was _Felicity_.

“You’re so… so beautiful.” He managed to get out.

Head jerking back to him, she blinked. “Um.”

And he smiled at that, couldn’t help it. Didn’t want to. She had no idea, did she? _Oh_ , how she used to make him smile and laugh. Her babbling- _I miss that_. He’d loved listening to them, loved the way her filthy mind and clever tongue would twist the ordinary into an innuendo. How her deep intelligence could run circles around all of them, how she was so full of knowledge that sometimes it tumbled out of her.

How she used to blush about it. How he’d watch that blush and wonder at how far it went, take pleasure in its colour and hate any other man who’d ever gotten the chance to see it.

He saw her eyes drop to his mouth and see the smile. Tentative, her gaze trailed back up to his eye… “Oliver?”

She recognised him in the aged face. She recognised the way his eyes mellowed when he smiled at her, _see; you already know, baby._ He only smiled like that with her. For her. “You know me.” He whispered to her.

“Oh my god.” Like she had a hundred questions and they were all hitting her at once, she could only gape at him. Dumbstruck. Until what was important – to her – seeped in and- “You’re hurt.”

 _I love every version of you._ “Yes.” He breathed.

“How bad is it?”

“Not important.”

“Well, it’s important if _I_ say that it’s-”

His fingers trembled when they touched her lips. When he stopped her mouth because more beautiful words should not be spoken to him here. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand how much that means to me.” And she was seeing it now, he realised. She was seeing the death lingering on him. The _want_ for it written into his skin and already her eyes were changing with it. Growing upset. She’d always been quicker than him, more empathetic. “Sshh.”

A gasp left her; warm breath hitting his fingertips and it was selfish that he was feeling it and not is younger self. _Let her in, Oliver. Let this wreck you: you’ll love it and need it and it’ll scare you to death and it’s worth every second of that fear_.

His eyes sought him out; finding a slow understanding dawn in that young face: why he was there, what this was.

Who he kept referring to.

“Just choose her.” _Choose her and, maybe, you won’t lose her. Like I did._ “Put…” He couldn’t hear his own voice. “Put her first. Be a… different… kind of selfish Oliver.”

The kind that might save her life.

“I-” A garbled attempt at words had his eyes slipping closed on the re-emergence of tears he couldn’t feel in his sockets. “I didn’t, when I should have. It wasn’t me who paid.”

Hand still hovering over her face, when he felt her try to speak - probably to urge to him to go to a hospital - his hand slanted, gently covering her mouth.

She didn’t pull away.

But he felt her fingers encroach around his hand, really; what better way to go was there? “You don’t just die once.” It was a whisper of a universal truth. “You die twice. You die with _her_ , before _you_.” He needed to understand this. “It’s _worth_ it.” Eyes wrenching open, shooting briefly to _her_ before heading back to _him_ and, teeth grit; Oliver watched each word hit his younger self and relished knowing that he _was_ getting it. _Just one more-_ “Everything. You don’t need to be anything other than what you are: it’s enough for her. You’re better together than apart, always-”

He lost the words.

Throat closing.

Sight blanking into nothing.

Sound vanishing.

Heart stopping.

Life… leaving his body.

It wasn’t always slow. It could be this fast.

It just slipped through without him telling it to and it would have been terrifying to feel the dark pull him in, if he hadn’t known she’d be right there. If she wasn’t ready, as always, to catch him. _I hadn’t finished_ … but he knew. It was rarely fair.

Sometimes the dream just ends.

_But-_

_‘Nope, you’re coming home with me’_

Felicity.

And suddenly the dark wasn’t dark: it was light. And warm, enveloping him with its sheen and its forgiving grace. It was perfectly safe. It was home. It was-

_Felicity Smoak._

_‘Oliver Queen, what took you so long’_

A joke. She was _joking_ with him. _I-_ And he felt all of it: all the bad leave him like poison drawn from a wound. Felt whole in a way he never had before. Felt complete. And free.

Because of her.

_Well, I had to at least try to convince my younger self to do the right thing._

_Oliver…_

_Felicity._

Fel-i-ci-ty.

He’d missed her so much.

 _Say my name forever_ , and it was such a sweet request, as if she might think it was arduous for him in any way.

_Yours is the only name I have to recognise myself. Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine._

And he was young again. Younger and better than ever before, but his body knew her; whether he even had a body of sorts anymore was beyond his comprehension and-

_Ready for the next part?_

_The next part?_

_They’re all here._

_…Everyone?_

_Yep._

_Mum, dad… Thea, Tommy…_

_All of them, my love._

_And… after?_

_That’s for you and me._

_I’m sorry we never-_

_Ssh. Regret does nothing for you here. This is a new beginning. A new life for us._

_Us._

_Us._

_That’s sounds like a good dream._

_It’s more than a dream._

_What ill we do?_

_Anything we want._

_Together?_

_Forever._

_Then I have nothing to lose._

_Don’t be afraid._

_I’m not; you’re here. I’m holding your hand._

_Are you ready?_

_Yes._

For the next dream to begin, one had to end.

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, staring down at the corpse of his older self. The feeling that he would never fully understand what had just happened – what he’d just been told – wouldn’t leave him.

The death didn’t shock him: he’d seen this in his nightmares before, only he was younger.

Still, the moment he’d… _gone_ , he’d felt the departure. The absence. The ripple.

Something had changed and he had no idea what it was or what that even meant-

His mobile vibrated.

Reaching into his jeans, not taking his eyes off the body until the last possible second, he looked at the screen.

And released an unsteady exhale.

_Sara._

She’d called and left a message. They’d been dating for a over a month and last week, Helena had been placed in prison. Since then, they’d redoubled their efforts to be a couple. A pair. Supportive and caring, because a _steady_ couple don’t argue the way they argued. They don’t clash the way they’d clash. They don’t-

They don’t try to change each other.

_“You don’t need to be anything other than what you are: it’s enough for her.”_

That hadn’t been about Sara.

Call it gut instinct, intuition- something. The person he’d been told to choose just once, wasn’t Sara. He’d known that immediately, because there wasn’t a woman who’d ever made him that desperate before-

_“Don’t Oliver! Not for me-”_

_“Quiet please, I’m threatening.”_

“Felicity?” Calling out, he finally glanced about him-

She was in the Foundry bathroom.

Releasing a sigh, he made his way over to there. “Felicity?” He said again once he reached the door. “Are…”

_Are you okay?_

It seemed trite, but he didn’t know what else to say.

A five second pause after the older man died, had Felicity standing up to stumble towards the bathroom whilst he’d been in a daze. It meant she’d been in there for almost ten minutes.

Lightly tapping on the door, “hey,” he felt worried and he didn’t know why. That same ghost of a feeling lingering since the man had passed away and he just needed to make sure she was okay before he could make sense of any of this. I’m… I’m coming in, okay?”

Silence.

 _Alright_. Lips pressed together, he turned the handle on the door and pushed it open…

His diaphragm clenched, something impossibly tight shooting up into his throat and making him swallow at what he saw.

Braced with one hand on the sink, Felicity’s other hand was clasped against her face as she sobbed her heart out as _quietly_ as she could manage.

Wide eyed, he stared at her.

_What the…?_

Was she that affected? By a stranger who’d appeared out of nowhere, dying a few minutes later?

A stranger that… looked exactly like him, _was_ him, _could_ be him?

Mouth just a tad open, he took a step inside the room. Words failed him.

“I…” and she tried, hard, to fight the current she was trying to keep in, “I-I’m alright.” Tears coated her voice - hand still covering half her face as she tried to speak - and really, she sounded like someone had just crushed her heart. “I’m sorry.”

Head already shaking, “no,” the sight of her tears were doing something to him, and he found himself moving; taking her in. Feeling the sight of her in his chest. “Felicity.”

A sob tore free from her, as if his voice had made it her feel more and-

“Okay, okay-” Stepping into her and pulling her away from the sink, "Ssh," his arms were already surrounding her; completely enveloping her. “Don’t cry.” And, snug to his chest; both her hands covering her face, he rocked her. “Don’t cry for me.”

That’s what she was doing.

What was _he_ doing?

It felt natural and strange and new and oddly right. She was small, which seemed to make up for her hugely positive personality. But it didn’t matter if she was small: he wasn’t, so she was safe. And her face fit sweetly in the space between his pectoral and bicep-

“That was _you_ out there.” Full of tears, Felicity wept the words.

He couldn’t deny it. “Yes.” he sounded guttural to her wobbly.

“You _died_.”

His arms constricted, and he reassured her. “I’m right here.” Even though his heart was pounding right now.

“But that was you and you… you _died_ -”

Shushing her, “Felicity, I’m still here.” He sighed, feeling more than a little fragile - and maybe it was what they’d just seen but he was trembling, which wasn't like him - his hand found the back of her neck. “And we all die at some point.”

She shook her face against his chest, sniffling. “But what if you die _then_?” What of they’d just glimpsed the future? “You couldn’t have been older than 60.”

 _That_ was her problem? “Frankly,” gallows humour made him smile a little; feeling the compassion from her and finding it endearing, “I didn’t think I’d last that long.”

“…That isn’t funny.” He stopped rocking her. She’d meant that. “That was no age to go, Oliver. No way to die.” The crying had come to an end, but she still sounded… aggrieved. “You’re supposed to die with the people you love.” His stomach caved. “Not alone, on the floor, in a damp basement.”

Throat moving, he found himself whispering oddly breathless. “Strange.”

“What?”

“…That’s how I always thought I’d go.” Alone and cold.

Hands moving, one of hers reached upwards between his pectorals. Touching his heart.

Feeling for the beat.

He swallowed.

Something had changed.

Head shifting, he let his cheek rest upon her head; eyes closing right as her heard her whisper:

“I won’t let that happen.”

And though he didn’t want her to worry about possible future horrors, he had no idea what to say to her here. He just continued to hold her, both of them needing it.

“You can’t tell them: not Sara or John.”

“But Sara’s your-”

“We can’t, Felicity. It doesn’t affect her,” it wasn’t about Sara at all, “and, to be honest I wouldn’t know how to explain this.”

After a moment of hesitation, he felt her nod. “Okay.”

Okay.

Think about it later.

Never…

 

* * *

 

 

_Until six months later…_

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk. Once we talk… it’s over.”

The perfect date. The best night of his life. The most beautiful she’d ever looked to him, sitting there; waiting for him.

Always waiting.

Now, in the hospital - as he turned back to her - she looked like she was readying herself for a blow.

Seeing her these days, after accepting his feelings, was a physical sensation; not just an emotional one. Her presence burned in his chest, made his heart race and his mind drift away to all the pleasant possibilities. She was his strength.

Loving her also distracted him. It nearly cost him the night before.

To lose her now… _no_. He couldn’t. It was impossible. In order to be the Arrow, he had to give up being Oliver Queen-

_“Choose her. Even if it’s just once, it doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter.”_

The voice hit him like a train on a railway track.

He hadn’t forgotten; they’d stayed with him. But so much had happened and-

 _What if he’s wrong?_ What if doing exactly that destroys the beauty the older version of himself had obviously lived through? What if pulling her close, instead of pushing her back, takes her away from him sooner?

_“It’s worth it.”_

Just once.

_“It’s worth it.”_

It's worth the fear-

“Oliver?”

He’d been staring at her.

Clearing his throat, he opened his mouth-

“I’m scared.” Came out, instead of _I can’t be with you_  .

And she clearly hadn’t been expecting it. “What?”

It was such a rush, such a relief, that he had to let out a broken breath. “I’m _so_ scared, Felicity.”

Felicity’s already soft face gentled further. “Of what?”

“This.” _Us_. The simple rightness of it, how necessary it could become. “I’m scared of… of being with you. That it might destroy you.”

Her expression didn’t shutter, she didn’t close off and step away; she just let him continue, sensing that there was more because she knew him.

They were standing on a precipice.

“I’m scared that this will go _well_.” And he smiled the kind of smile that was expecting her to go. He already loved her so much and all he could focus on was the fear. “That we’ll leave here together, that we’ll go to your place and it’ll… it’ll be magic. We’ll fall into each other.” And he couldn’t help the depth in his voice as the images of that possibility assaulted him, watching her eyes darken and be affected by it and hating that his hands weren’t already on her. “It wouldn’t take long before I’m in too deep to get out.” For her to sink into his bones and never leave. Shaking his head, still smiling, still feeling her, needing her; he lifted a hand to point at his head, “You’re already in here,” then his heart, “and here and I don’t ever want to leave, but this? Being together… I won’t come back from that. It’ll touch everything and maybe I’ll get distracted again. Maybe I’ll miss something. And I can’t-” he had to pause for breath, struggling for it as he choked on the love and terror that was warring inside him. “I can’t lose you.” Breathless and afraid, he _showed_ her. “I can’t be with you. But I want to love you. It’s all I can think about.”

The breath she realised was unsteady. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

It sounded wonderful. “It’s a dream.”

She stepped closer to him, surprising him. She wasn’t… repelled? “It doesn’t have to be.”

“If you’re he cost? That’s not something I can _bear_.”

“What if you trained not to be distracted? What if I’m willing to bear it?”

“I-”

I can’t let that happen.

I won’t let you anywhere near me and harm.

It isn’t your choice to make; I’m taking you out of the equation.

I don’t deserve-

_“You’ll make choices that hurt her, that doesn’t put her first and she deserves that, she…”_

Mouth closing, he searched her face. “The risks are high.”

“They were always high.” It was so selfish the way he internally rejoiced as she stepped close enough to tempt his touch. But isn’t that what his older self had told him? To be a different kind of selfish? To choose love over fear. To choose exposure over safety. “I could get hurt leaving the Foundry and being with you would _not_ be able to keep that happening.”

Teeth clenched, he glanced over her head and sucked in a breath. If he looked at her now, he’d kiss her. Knowing she wasn’t wrong didn’t help and-

“I don’t want to have to beg you.” Then his eyes flew to her because she sounded quiet, small, embarrassed and-

Her eyes were wet.

She wanted this.

Wanted him.

And she was _sure_ he was going to reject her.

_“Choose her. Even if it’s just once, it doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter.”_

“But,” she was saying and, smiling sadly; she shook her head at him, “I don’t want to force you into doing something that you might regret-”

Ridiculous.

Hands leaving the back pockets of his jeans, Oliver swiftly cupped her face - feeling a jolt of rightness through him as he did - and leaned down into her space, watching her lashes flutter at his proximity and hearing her breath catch. “Stop talking.”

When his mouth fastened to hers, that’s exactly what she did.

Heart. She was all heart and soul and she was bringing him to life. Hearing her uncertainty killed him.

 _Kissing_ her made all that go away.

Something slotted in place when he did; the kind of click that couldn’t be undone as his skin tingled, as his heart pounding in his chest; feeling the softness of her hair beneath his fingertips, her scent in his nostrils, her full mouth against his…

And he turned her about because- _wall_. He needed a wall, especially when she pressed up into his mouth, making the rise and contract of his rib cage painfully tight. As if he could get enough breath. And when they reached the wall - when his hand briefly left her face to guide and steady them there against it - one of her hands left his arm to wrap her own around his neck, pulling him close enough to fit herself fully to his front - _Christ_ \- as her mouth opened; warm and inviting and-

Tongue slipping down hers into that moist heat, pure heat shot through him and _down_. A downwards pulse, a rhythm that he desperately wanted to move to-

“Please don’t say we can’t do this.” The pleaded whisper against his lips sent a thrill to his spine and even though their noses were _smushed_ together, their eyes remained open. Gazing at each other. Glasses partially fogged, she’d never looked more tempting. “Please don’t take it back.”

“Take what back?” He mouthed; one hand braced against the wall, the other around her back, holding like he’d always wanted to.

There was a telling pause before she quietly spoke. “You said you loved me.” 

“I did.”

“Did you mean it?”

Oddly breathless after a kiss that wasn’t just a kiss, he decided to be a different kind of selfish.

He decided to be _honest_.

“…Yes.”

And he waited for the universe to find someway to make him drop dead. Or her. In many ways, he’d be waiting for years.

Except all that happened was her tentative smile becoming a hopeful one. When her eyes shone and widened in incredulous happiness as she leaned into him, he made his choice.

Eyes flickering briefly away, he licked his lips and posed a question. “Can you help me be the Arrow… _and_ be Oliver Queen?”

Because in order to do this, there could be no half measures.

Pure happiness made her swallow and he tightened his hold. “Only if you answer one question.”

Voice guttural, feeling with emotional and heady; he responded fervently. “Anything.”

She inhaled. “…Will you come home with me?”

Eyes travelling to and from hers, he realised something. Choosing her? It meant choosing him to. Something he’d tried hard never to do again and that was when he fully understood what his future self had been telling him.

He had to forgive himself.

To do that, he had to let her in.

They went hand in hand.

And maybe that was why he started shake, why he made her happiness flicker before he responded with a choked sound of pure want."Is that a trick question?" 

She giggled; her nose crinkling.

“Yes.” Feeling all too vulnerable, his own smile was that of a boy who missed his mother, his brother, his father and everything in between; who’d fooled himself into thinking that he’d never have this. That it would be taken from him if he tried. So, yes; he was afraid. He was fucking terrified.

But he knew the answer now.

It was her.

“I want to be with you…” the words tumbled put and his heart nearly stopped when he felt her fingers touch his jaw, cup his chin. Eyes closing, swallowing; he let his forehead rest upon hers. “I don’t want to ever _not_ be with you.”

So close to him, he felt her smile against his mouth; felt her tremble. “You took my line.”

“God.” Unable to help himself, he tucked her upper lip into his mouth again, tasted her. “Felicity.” Hand sliding from around her, he cupped her face again. He stared into her eyes and he showed her the depth of his love for her there. “I love you.”

As her mouth opened, a quiet click and a flash to his left had him whirling around- _this is it; I did the wrong thing and the universe is-_

“Saved.” Not even looking at then, John Diggle - who stood outside of his wife's hospital room - brought his mobile towards himself as he - more than likely - saved the picture he’d just taken. “Evidence.” He muttered before looking up at them both: _her_ sheltered in his arms and _him_ pressing her against the wall. And he grinned. “Didn’t mean to interrupt the perfect moment.”

The perfect moment.

Feeling like he’d run a marathon, Oliver lifted his head away from her mouth as much as he could bare. “You did.”

Dig’s grin widened. “Oops.”

Felicity buried a laugh in his chest and really, it was the perfect moment. The perfect feeling.

“Jesus, you two.” Head shaking, John waved them off. “Get out of here.”

They didn’t need telling twice and, laughing as they practically sprinted out of the hospital together - hand in hand - they did exactly that.

 

* * *

 

 

“Felicity…”

“What is it? Why do you look like that?”

“I… I saw someone today. Remember when I told you about Sandra?”

“Yes, I-I think so.”

“I saw her outside of Jitters. She had a kid with her. Her son.”

“Okay.”

“Her _eight-year-old_ son.”

“Oh… OH.”

“Yeah.”

“So… help me out here, Oliver. What are you saying?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But… I think I need to find out, just in case.”

“Absolutely.”

“…Will you help me?”

“You don't even have to ask.”

 

* * *

 

 

Stood beside his wife of two years and her three months pregnant body, Oliver made an announcement he’d been considering since the day if their wedding.

“We’re leaving Star City.”

Rene dropped his hot dog. “You what?”

Curtis’s mouth dropped open. “No, seriously? Really?!”

Dinah looked like she’d been slapped across the face. “You can’t do this to us now.”

John… John was silent, because John already knew and – after explaining their reasons – had eventually understood and agreed with them.

“We’ve spent almost seven years saving this city. We manged to do that a couple of months ago. You don’t need us anymore.” To hold your hands and be your scapegoats.

“Look,” Dinah started, “we’ve only just gotten the respect of the city. That could waver at any time-”

“It’s no longer down only to us,” his arm tightened around Felicity’s shoulder, “to respond to that.” Oliver stated. “We did what we set out to do. I’m ready to hang up the hood.”

“And, ah,” Curtis attempted as Dinah took a step back, then two, stunned; “who’ll wear it now?”

“No one will.” He said simply.

Roy was forever detained and that was a good thing: Thea was glowing. And John – he’d started a security business that would take him around the globe.

The three of them had started this together: they were done.

“I can’t believe this.”

_Rene._

“Why?”

“Okay, I’m not saying you _don’t_ deserve to live your lives but-”

“Ah,” Felicity hummed, “the glorious caveat.”

Rene sighed. “If something goes wrong, how will we contact you?”

“You don’t.” At their flabbergasted expressions, Oliver explained and found himself curiously separate from them all. “If anything does happen, the city has all of you.” It used to have more: it used to have Laurel before she was killed in action and Thea before she left to LIVE. “Rory’s coming back too: he’s finished what he needs to do overseas. And Quentin isn’t going anywhere.”

It was the end of an era.

_Thank god._

“I can’t believe you’re choosing to walk out on this.” It was odd that the most attached to them was the one person who’d been their most harsh judge. “I mean, is this forever?” Dinah pressed; her arms folded to hide how shaken she truly was.

“I’m not choosing to walk out.” Voice low, he felt Felicity’s hand stroke over his back as he explained what she felt that he shouldn’t have to. “I’m choosing my wife. My family.” _It’s never led me wrong before_.

Married and expecting their first child; he and Felicity had already rebuilt Queen Consolidated from the ground up. As CEO’s, very rich CEO’s, they could choose to work from home - even if home was in another state - and the choice was an easy one.

And he had _himself_ to thank for that. It felt good to think that.

“After Damien and Prometheus,” the man who’d almost took his wife from him, “we put our marriage and our lives on hold to rebuild what was destroyed. I made a promise to myself that when the Glades were given substantial repair, when the SCPD were fully autonomous and when every single personnel had been cleared after inspection, when a system had been set in place to reduce the crime wave, we’d go. We kept that promise.”

It was their turn to live.

He didn’t expect the three of them to understand because, they never had. But John, who pulled up off the table he’d parked at, did.

“Congratulations man.” They shook hands at the same time Dig pulled Felicity into a one-armed hug. “You’ve more than earned this.”

Feeling the truth in that, Oliver let his shoulders relax. “More than that, I’m ready for it.”

Baby names, baby room. Sex in every room of their house in Aruba. Cooking, cleaning, building a treehouse. Watching movies, allowing himself to be lazy, reading the list of books that were piled high, swimming, sailing, being with his girl every single second… a lifetime of bliss.

Part of him still couldn’t believe it, that he got to have that after losing so much. And yes, maybe one day they’d be called back into action. But today was not that day.

And it was all because he decided to choose Felicity. To choose her and to choose her and to choose her.

Wherever that other version of him was, _I hope you’re as happy as I am now._

As if she knew what he was thinking, and she did; he felt Felicity nuzzle his shoulder. She was quiet because _she_ was happy too. And tired from the morning sickness, which meant she was probably getting hungry again so-

“We leave tomorrow.” He told them all. “And we don’t plan to look back. You won’t be able to find us.” It was beginning to sound more and more like a threat but Dinah, Rene and Curtis - they had it coming. “Only John knows where we are-”

“And I’m under strict instructions not to release any information short on an Armageddon taking place.” Rubbing his knuckles - his massive arms budging - John’s smile was a threat all on its own. “I plan on holding to that.”

_“Choose her… it’s worth it.”_

_You were right._


End file.
